🔍 Discover🌱 Montessori-inspired🌎 Nature👨🍳 Practical life
👃 What's That Smell?
Three pots, three smells, and a new word for each one.
Ages
1–3
Duration
10 min
Cost
Free
👶 Kid challenge
Easy
🧑 Parent energy
Hands on · 3 min prep
⚠️ Safety first
Stay in the room. Lids taped shut, nothing spicy or strong, and no tasting. Not for under 1.
You know your child best — supervise the whole time and skip anything that isn't right for them. See our Terms.
Why this is good for your child
- ✓Smell
- ✓Vocabulary
🌱 Montessori-inspired · Sensorial
What you need
3 small potsCinnamonOrange peelFresh herb
How to do it
- 1Put one strong-smelling thing in each pot.
- 2Hold one under their nose and name it.
- 3Let them choose which to smell again.
How it actually goes
The honest version — including what "going well" looks like at this age.
- ⏱ 30-second set-up
- Thirty seconds: put 3 small pots, cinnamon, orange peel on a tray or a clear bit of floor, and sit down next to it before you call them over.
- 🧑 What you do
- Show it once, slowly, without talking over yourself. Then hand it over and stop helping unless they ask.
- 👶 What they do
- Touch, shake, sort and compare until it makes sense to them.
- ✅ What success looks like
- At 1–2 they'll tip it out and put nothing back. That's the work — emptying comes long before filling.
- 🧺 How to put it away
- Everything back into one basket or tray, carried back to its spot by them. Naming the spot out loud is what makes it stick.
- 📈 When they outgrow it
- Older? Add a blindfold or a guessing round — same thing, harder.